{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"The Paul Truesdell Podcast","title":"Long Wars, Long Contracts: Why Army Procurement Belongs in Your Portfolio - Part 2","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":641,"description":"2Envisioning the ScenarioNow, before I get into a few of the Army’s weapons systems, I want you to envision the following scenario. This is not fiction. It actually happened and it had our firm and me in particular, on a level of extreme focus and attention, and let’s just say, a lot of time was spent on preparing to rapidly adjust equity portfolios in the event of what I will tell you about, being the straw that broke the camel’s back. The news recently carried reports of U.S. Navy assets — including the aircraft carrier Nimitz, her destroyer escorts, and submarines — operating in the Pacific while confronting aggressive Chinese maneuvers. The Chinese have been shadowing our carriers, running mock attack drills, and buzzing aircraft dangerously close. Nothing catastrophic has happened yet, but the world has inched closer to that edge where a single mistake can change history.Let us imagine things going badly. A Chinese fighter, instead of buzzing a U.S. destroyer, fires upon it. Or worse, a submarine lurking beneath the waves launches a missile at the Nimitz itself. If that happened, all hell would have broken loose. Escalation would be immediate, not gradual. That single event would trigger a chain reaction across the Pacific, and possibly the globe.And here is the central question: where is the rational mind to stop things?During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, calm, disciplined leadership pulled us back from the brink. During the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, when nuclear stockpiles were at risk of theft or misuse by rogue nations, it was steady hands and quiet negotiations that prevented catastrophe. But today, we must ask ourselves — in an age of instant communications, cyber warfare, and political posturing — do we still have leaders capable of remaining calm, cool, and collected under fire?Hollywood, in its own way, has foreshadowed these fears. If you remember the movie The Peacemaker, the story revolved around nuclear weapons...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/115-XsjkdwCpJ99xv-8oZ76t6jr8ScWEC5MYSKzL0ig/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS82MTUx/OWRiNTc0NTk0Y2Nk/M2VjYTliMGVhN2Zm/YTZkZi5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}